


Lucid Dreaming

by TheQueen



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabble, Drug Use, M/M, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 01:41:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8948338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueen/pseuds/TheQueen
Summary: They find him like this.     Inspired by Something Blue by WHUMPBBY





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Something Blue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7815244) by [WHUMPBBY](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WHUMPBBY/pseuds/WHUMPBBY). 



> Please read the first chapter of Something Blue by WHUMPBBY for more context, but can be read by itself.

They find him like this.

Wrapped in silks and furs, sitting on a plush bed, surrounded by pillows in a dimly lit yellow room. Looking at nothing and thumbing slowly through an open book.

When he looks at them, his eyes are dazed. Empty.

.

Lance doesn’t know how much time passes. Doesn’t even know how to begin to judge. He knows it feels long. Long enough for it to become normal. Long enough for him to start fraying around the edges.

These days when the emperor stops by, he doesn’t fight.

But no… that’s not true. Because he’s learned when Zarkon wants him limp and pliant and just there and when he wants him biting back, testing his restraints.

The first time Lance had left scratches along Zarkon’s back, he was rewarded with a supervised trip around a town square in one of the colonies they’d stopped in. He’d thought about escape for the first few minutes--breathing in the fresh air for the first time in what feels like forever--before the emperor places a strong hand on his shoulder and he freezes, still and quiet. Because even now the gag sits pretty on his bedside. A promise.

.

After a particularly rough night where he is left nursing bruises along his hips and thighs, he finds a yellow bottle of raw Quintessence on his bedside and doesn’t question the implied directions.

.

When he returns the night is nearing complete and the emperor is petting hair. He allows himself to be lulled back to sleep.

.

He asks for clothes, real clothes, clothes like the ones he wore the one time he stepped outside of this room after what he judges must be long enough to give up hope.

Zarkon still whispers it at times. His promises. Of how he’ll hurt Keith and Shiro. How he’ll use Lance to make Hunk pliant. How Pidge will be the easiest to control. It makes his heart ache. Makes his mouth dry as he gasps and forces his lips closed around pleas for Zarkon to stop, to be content with him. Because he might not have much left but he has that. He has his silence and his words.

Even if the emperor uses claws and thick fingers to pry his mouth open. Even if the emperor knows just the right ways to make him scream, Lance will not beg. He will take what is given because he has learned to endure it.

But he knows better than to think there is anything past this, anything he can grab hold of to ground himself. Nothing past the surreal routine he finds himself in and the promises the emperor gives him and the way the days blur together.

.

One day before the emperor comes to his chambers, Lance takes the last of the raw Quintessence left for him and smiles as his mind slips through his fingers like water.

.

The next morning his memory is spotty. Flashes of color. Of touch. The taste of something cool and salty on his tongue and fingers in his hair. Whispered praise.

.

Once the emperor comes to him twice in what Lance assumes could count as a day. Emperor Zarkon’s hands shake with an unknown fury as he buries himself in Lance over and over again and his body gives, open and welcoming as it’s been made to do so.

When it is over, the emperor leaves his hands chained and brings Lance closer, his head resting over the emperor’s unsteady heartbeat.

.

It’s how he wakes up the next morning before the emperor presses rough lips against his own.

.

Days later a Galran Lance has never seen before comes to his room and growls at him to enter the bath. He is bathed, rubbed with floral scents and has his hair braided. They bring in amirror and it is the first time Lance has seen his face in too long. It looks sharper. He touches his cheekbones with unsteady hands and wonders when was the last time he ate a meal.

It unnerves him that he hasn’t thought about this before.

His skin looks pale. Dark circles from sleep deprivation. But other than that, he almost looks the same. The bite from that first night has long scarred, sitting where his throat meets his shoulder. A gentle sort of pink.

They dress him. Not in chains or light cloth that Lance has come to assume is Galran lingerie. But in a thick dark blue piece of cloth with a black sash holding the fabric together at his waist like a roman dress. It falls past his toes, feels heavy around his shoulders. Leaves his body nearly shapeless. He blinks, confused, up at the Galran…woman? Their features are softer than the Emperor’s and Guard’s. But what does he know about the Galra, really?

When they come to him with a gag, he flinches, stumbles and crawls back before becoming helplessly entangled within the long draped fabric. After that it is easy to given to the gag and cuffs they bind him in.

.

They take him to the Emperor. He feels Zarkon’s clawed hand in his hair as he is forced to kneel and does his best not to react. There are people here. Other Galrans and beyond that. Species he’s never seen before. Never even imagined. Each creature more unique and frightening then the last. Interacting within this shared public space.

It is a reminder of how infinitely large the universe he finds himself in truly is. It is a reminder of how little prepared he was.

The Emperor brings him forward and up so he is now standing, wraps a possessive hand around his hip and whispers something in his ear. Lance looks at him. The words mean little, but when the Emperor pulls him forward for a kiss Lance goes. Of course he does.

.

When he returns to his room, he finds a chest with clothes.

.

The Emperor whispers how good he’s been, how pliant. Whispers something about life and trust and hope. Whispers the name of a Blue Paladin that Lance has never heard of and realizes what he has allowed to slip past his fingers.

.

He asks for books at some point between orgasms and cool sheets and cool baths. Feels the wet ends of his hair stick to the space between his shoulder blades and shudders as the Emperor holds him down to the new bed sheets and breaks his skin.

.

There is a bookcase when he wakes.

He cannot read them.

Not yet.

.

The raw Quintessence comes and goes these days. It’s affects no longer as potent. Lance sips it in place of water, lets the world blur and refocus as he works.

.

He wonders why Allura never told him of this gift, of how blue spills and spills from his every pore and breathe. He thinks he understands now why Zarkon takes him the way he does.

It doesn’t make it right.

But it makes sense.

.

One night, he experiments. Presses the flat of his palm over where he judges Zarkon’s heart to be and let’s go.

When he returns to himself, Zarkon has stopped to stare at him, yellow eyes impossibly bright in the dimly lit room. It takes a moment for Lance to realize the Emperor is still buried inside him. He moans.

Zarkon makes an expression that almost conveys happiness. For some reason, it doesn’t look as cruel as it should be and he slips away once again.

.

He reads about the bond between paladins, of the way something like a soul ties them together and pushes out and out. Past the ship and it’s metal walls. Past the stars and their light. Pushes and pushes.

.

He finds something warm and red and fire pulsing in the dark that feels a little like home.

.

Zarkon takes to sleeping in his bed.

.

One day he is allowed to take a walk around the ship. Two guards stand close as if there is anything Lance can do with his feet chained beneath the folds of his dress.

.

Zarkon unchains his hands when they fall asleep.

.

That day a new bottle of pink Quintessence sits on his desk as a half finished one hides in his drawer and he wonders why. The chains rattle around his wrist as he finishes it in one go.

.

He wakes up in the Castle and wonders at what point did he start hallucinating. He goes back to sleep.

.

Shiro’s face swims through his hallucinations, drifting in and out between what feels like blinks but must be hours. At some point Hunk joins him and shatters just past Lance’s fingertips.

.

During a moment that might be lucid, Lance realizes his feet are unchained even though the room is dark.

The Emperor does not come for him.

He sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after I read the first chapter of Something Blue by WHUMPBBY. I never really considered publishing it but after reading the last chapter and showing this to some friends, I thought I might as well. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think!


End file.
